babygirl's reviews
170 reviews

Read when I couldn't sleep, interesting read, enjoyed the art -- especially the alternatives by Nguyễn Lê Trung. Just realized that's the author for The Magic Fish and I love that book so that makes sense HAHA. 

My favorites designs were that of the sheep, the cat, the nettle, and Mamo. 

I think it's interesting having the titular character be the antagonist, a blood relation, and a dead grandmother. She was so powerful and manipulative. Her desire to control her legacy to the point of trapping her grandchild to either stay or lose all magic, the magic she gifted her with, was scary and understandable. It's hard to communicate the horror of being bound by family tradition and legacy, especially when so many would see this as an ideal place to settle down in, but Orla needed to leave and deserved her own idea of freedom and future. Really worthwhile story. 

Some of the characters come off a little too abrasive to me, which dimmed my enjoyment a bit. Also, I liked that Jo initiated the kiss/relationship, if there had to be one.

 

This was so good! 

The only lingering questions was why her old friend wouldn't report Sam at any point? I wish we got to explore her mind a little bit more. 

Also, did they not find animal-people she killed over the 40 years (ie before Nigel was born)? 

 

I loved the art -- the style, differences between animal-people and animal-animals, how it seems to be water-colors, the differences in body shapes, etc. It's so well-drawn, even the detail of Cherry spreading her lipstick to her snout. I love the amount of details paid to those aspect of character. 

Story-wise, really tight, interesting, and concise. Really neat immersion into a new world, easy and smooth explanations, an ending that leaves you wondering. Great! 

Great writer, but am not personally fond of multiple POVs. Might try again in the future, if I get over that. 

It's a cookbook; did not actually read the whole thing. Pretty easy to follow along, helpful recipes. Keeping track to find again in the future because it's good. 

I don't usually like poetry, but I'm really glad I picked out and worked through this book. There's still some references I don't quite understand (why is she talking to Catullus? what does that mean?). I liked the diversity of formats -- channeling different authorial voices; mock-interview format with demands to rephrase impertinent questions she herself wrote; collecting headlines to show that in itself can form an overwhelming narrative. She finds a lot of ways to connect with her reader, to hold up a mirror. Really creative and I hope to come back to it again when I've learned a little more. I know there's not stuff I'm not getting right now, which is a good kind of frustration. 

Great drawings! If I'm honest, I'm still a little confused about the ending even after reading it twice, but I still enjoy it greatly! I think it's really cool what can be done with just red, white and black (and shades of grey, haha), and think this is fun for any spookier nights! 

First piece of fiction I've personally seen that covered the Cuban involvement in Angola. In anecdotes, older people usually just describe it as "bad. Very bad." I don't know if I learned anything through this book, but I was hooked. 

I thought it was interesting the purposeful ways white and mixed-race/mulato, talked about Blackness in this book, as something that separated them with Angolans, different 'internal' sides of them (my Black side will come out through violence, etc.), something to distance from, etc. I thought having the Russian-Ukranian character be almost-the-most-normal white person about Black people/Blackness was both very funny and true. 

I was skeptical of Cassandra/Raulito in the beginning, and have seen some protagonists who are written to be semi-prophetic leave the reader with a sense of mystery whether it is all true or not, even at the end. I thought it was wonderful and distinct to leave us with no question that Cassandra was right all along, and really was her. She never seemed to try to dodge her end-fate (ignominious death), even with all the outs offered by even the unsympathetic characters, even before she landed in Angola, which makes me wonder if it is a kind of suicide. 

 

I'm curious what led the author to conceive of this book, and glad that he did. One of the most interesting internal worlds I've ever inhabited. Hope to read more of his soon! 

I loved this book! 

I thought the conversation Anne has with the captain at the end was very interesting in that it doesn't make any sense from Anne's perspective, or at least within her own family. Mary doesn't like her kids and doesn't seem to like her husband at all. Elizabeth seems to have no interest in having kids, or a husband, and doesn't like Anne (or, presumably, Mary, or anyone but herself). Her father, Sir Walter, has never remarried and some of it is definitely due to his vanity and high standards hardly any woman could meet probably, but some might assume part of it is because he misses his wife who died long ago. It was weird to equate longing and yearning to a gender when there are so many examples to the opposite within her own family. I guess Anne might be a vehicle for Austen to make us think of how this doesn't make sense, beyond Wentworth writing his famous, "half-agony, half-hope letter," (which is so good!!!!). I think it's nice how much stock Austen points into her love interests writing letters to the main characters, even/especially those written in the heat of the moment and with great fear! Anne deserved and more!

Austen is amazing at writing loneliness even in the midst of so many people, people who have known you your entire life. Poor Anne, I'm so happy she found the truth in the end and can be married to someone she loved and comfortably so. She was right to wait, and able to happily marry the love of her life! Not a lot happens in this book, but it is done so masterfully you find patience and tension in the most mundane of scenes. Really happy I read this! 

I wish I understood this book better. I'm going to try to reread this again in a few years, and maybe the added perspective of more experiences and age will help me. I really do want to understand, because the friends who I've listened to recount his work and their love of it, really do love his work. But I really don''t get it, as of now. 

First review: hey this was crazy. wtf???

Second review: About the first half and thensome, was a really great murder mystery that had me tensing up in anticipation and fear for various characters. It was incredibly well-written, deeply entrancing, and easy to visualize. I saw the mountain, all the trees, the midst of heaven hiding

the dead bodies.

Superb. What happened at the end?

Why would he kill himself by fake-smoking TNT? Could people just buy TNT back then? Why was Sausage's speech so crazy? Why did we wait an extra twenty years? Why did she keep describing how close her and Madam Tim were in that closet? Who was she talking to? WTF was all of that? Who was that seamstress? Did he have kids and kill himself? Why was his wife 20 years younger than him? Why was she called Sausage, by the way, is that normal in ~1840s France?

It had me until the last part, to be honest.